JERUSALEM, Oct 28 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and rival Gadi Eisenkot offered competing claims to lead Israel after Tuesday's election, with Netanyahu calling for a right-wing government and Eisenkot saying voters had rejected the longtime Israeli leader, even as exit polls left their blocs deadlocked.
Netanyahu called for the formation of “a strong, right-wing national government,” while Eisenkot said the public had voted against Netanyahu remaining prime minister and called on him to retire from politics. Neither of them claimed victory.
Neither declaration resolved the electoral arithmetic.
With actual votes trickling in, Kan 11 and Channel 13 exit polls had the blocs tied at 51-51, while Channel 12 gave Netanyahu's Likud-led bloc a narrow 52-49 edge. None left either side with the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-seat Knesset.
The deadlock could work in Netanyahu's favour, leaving him in office as a caretaker prime minister during what are likely to be prolonged coalition negotiations or even until another election can be held.
Far-right religious parties led by Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich were projected to take a combined 13 seats within Netanyahu's bloc – with no major gains for either of them.
Arab parties outside the two main blocs could hold the balance of power. But Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar party and a former military chief, has all but ruled out forming a government with them, complicating his path to power.
SECURITY FIGHT SHARPENS
Netanyahu highlighted Israel's military successes and raised the prospect of renewed joint action with US President Donald Trump against Iran as he addressed party faithful after 3 a.m. (0100 GMT) at Likud election headquarters in Jerusalem.
"Israel faces a singular historical opportunity, together with our partner President Trump, to remove the existential threat of Iran once and for all. But ulterior motives must not divert us from this sacred mission," he said.
Eisenkot earlier warned Netanyahu not to use Israel's security for political purposes.
“Netanyahu is a caretaker prime minister, without a mandate or the people's trust,” Eisenkot said, calling on the security establishment to “stand firm” against any attempt to put political interests ahead of Israel's security.
Voter turnout was 77.7%, Israel's Central Elections Committee said, the highest in more than two decades and around 7 percentage points higher than in 2022.
Final results are expected on Thursday or Friday, and Israel's fragmented political system leaves smaller parties potential kingmakers in coalition negotiations that have run to weeks or months after past elections. If neither bloc can form a government, another vote may need to be held, something Eisenkot opposed given the high voter turnout.
Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, called the exit polls a major defeat for Netanyahu's coalition but cautioned that Eisenkot had not emerged as a clear winner and much could change as votes were counted.
NETANYAHU SETBACK, NO CLEAR WINNER
If the exit poll projections hold, Netanyahu's nationalist-religious coalition, which at its height held 68 seats, would fall far short of the 61 needed to govern, leaving him with no clear path to forming a government.
Eisenkot, 66, who lost a son and two nephews in the Gaza war, emerged as Netanyahu's strongest challenger, stressing his security credentials while positioning himself as a centrist domestically.
He entered politics only four years ago and joined Netanyahu's war cabinet after the 2023 Hamas attack, but quit eight months later, criticising the prime minister's leadership.
Eisenkot offers a break with Netanyahu's leadership and far-right allies, but not with the hawkish approach to security that has become more entrenched since the 2023 Hamas attack. He opposes Palestinian statehood and says Hamas' military wing must be destroyed or dismantled.
Eisenkot says Israel's response — a war that has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities — was a failure because Hamas remains in charge.
The headquarters of the Joint List, an alliance of several Arab parties, burst into whistles and applause when exit polls were released, on a historic night for turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel.
“We refuse the occupation and racism, and we will remain here,” said Faten Gattas, a candidate in the Joint List, in a speech at the alliance’s headquarters in Nazareth. Candidates hoped high Arab turnout would allow them to play a decisive role in blocking Netanyahu's coalition from returning to power.
A WARTIME VERDICT
Voters grappled with the trauma of Israel's deadliest day, when Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostage, and the wars in Gaza and with Lebanon's Hezbollah and Iran that followed.
While Netanyahu was criticised for the country's biggest security failure, he argued that he had made Israel and the world safer by killing top leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.
The policies of Netanyahu's right-wing coalition have been divisive at home and deepened Israel's international isolation, but he has portrayed himself as the leader with the mettle to face down Israel's foes.
Netanyahu, 77, has served as prime minister for nearly 19 of the past 30 years and has repeatedly survived political crises. His opponents have managed to wrest the premiership from him only once since 2009, after four inconclusive elections in two years. Eighteen months later, he was back.
He entered the election facing long-standing corruption charges, which he denies, and criticism over intelligence failures that allowed Hamas-led militants to carry out their attack.
